Q-DawgVFR in Fort Saskatchewan

After shopping around and getting a few quotes for the work to be done, we chose Dan Carson of Wild Rose Contracting to carry out the work we wanted done to our newer Montorio built home. (We had also looked to our builder, Montorio Homes, but their labor costs were a little too high for our project.) Dan came on the recommendation of a family friend who used to be employed in the construction industry, who respected his work and character. Dan came by and did the quotes and explained how certain aspects of the job (such as the electrical work) would be sub-contracted to associates that he typically works with. We were OK with the terms, and Dan and his crew got to work building us a large composite deck, and install man-door and pull-through on our triple garage, as well as additional electrical outlets / lighting in the garage, and for the newly installed roof covering a portion of the new deck. Work on our place occurred as schedule on other projects permitted (we knew this ahead of time) and was spread out over a 8 - 10 week period. There were a couple of minor delays that were not expected (one related to waiting for electrical inspection to happen before garage work could be completed) but nothing too significant. The prices were reasonable and the work done was very good quality. The guys were quick to offer suggestions on how they thought the project could be improved upon, such as "picture framing" the deck boards for a more finished look, or contributing ideas for the deck skirting or color choices on the aluminum railings. Dan also made a suggestion for someone to do work on our A/C install, and after comparison shopping, we chose his recommendation for HVAC contractor, and are very pleased with his work too. In the end, the project took a tad longer than anticipated, but the results were well worth it. We have had it complete since last May and there has been no movement or issues with any of the construction quality. We love the finished product and look forward to enjoying it again this year. We are located on a walking trail, and I frequently hear comments from passers by about "what a nice deck that is" The garage with the extra doors and wiring is now prepped for the work that I need to do to complete the "man cave", and is well lit to work on any projects within it. Wild Rose Contracting was easy to work with, and we will consider them again for future construction needs, such as completing our basement development. It was also nice to get the best quotes and service from a local company that looks after their customers and cares about the work they do.

After shopping around a lot for an HVAC contractor to install A/C in our 1850"sq home, we came right back to where we started our search: HeatCool Connect in Ft Sask, AB. Lee of HeatCool Connect had been recommended by another contractor who was doing work on our home at the time. Lee was professional, on time, gave us a detailed estimate quickly which saved us money. He explained why we did not need a larger tonnage A/C unit. Some companies are lazy and use general numbers for their estimates, based on square footage and type of home, while the good ones take measurements of windows, look at home orientation and other factors as well. Lee came and completed the job quickly, on time and on budget. He did explain that we were wise to call early in the season, as the summer time gets very busy for him installing A/C systems. The work completed was both competitively priced, and quality work, and it felt good to hire someone local who could be trusted for future service needs or system changes. Our system runs cool and quiet; after one season of use still no issues at all. We installed a Trane, and have used Trane equipment in our last home with no issues. I highly recommend this company and individual for their quality work at very competitive prices.

Well, I have not found many reviews on Stevenson Homes, but there should be so that people can be forewarned about the widespread problems experienced with this builder. The company is run by Lyle [last name removed--Ed]. My wife and I chose to have our first home built by Stevenson Homes (then called by two names - SDC: Stevenson Development Corporation and its subsidiary Corridor Homes.) The home was erected in early 2003, and lived in by us until late 2009. I honestly don't know where to begin with this review, as there are so many issues to report. Basically, they were easy to work with and very accomodating up to getting the house purchase agreement signed. After that, it was all downhill. Most of their homes look OK on the surface, but dig a little deeper and you will find problem after problem. My wife and I caught a lot of the mistakes made as they occurred, due to our frequent site visits as the home was being constructed. As neither of us was terribly knowledgeable on home construction at the time, a lot of mistakes slipped by us. You can't rely on this builder to catch any of them. We were told that some of the items would be fixed "soon" during construction. Well they kept building around and over some of these uncorrected mistakes, and we kept getting strung along. The utility area in basement was a total mess in layout, compared to what the house plans showed. Nothing was where it was indicated to be, and the sump pump which was required by code had been located directly underneath a basement window; not where the plans showed it to be. I requested that it get moved. They took it out and then poured the basement floor without one. Then they chopped a crude hole in floor and did half-baked install afterwards. Basement overall was totally lousy. Foundation walls crooked by 3" in some places, missed insulation everywhere you looked, sloppiest plumbing I've ever seen, poor location of electrical panel and hot water tank (in spite of numerous requests to have it corrected to reflect the home plan layout.) Drafts from every electrical switch when the wind was blowing, sewer piping was run outside insulated wall through garage, heating system was "professionally cleaned" but we found hunks of drywall and debris in every duct: only the heating vent openings had been vacuumed out. Kitchen island was erected in wrong spot. Their fix was to relocate it and cut out the "squares" of vinyl floor that were drilled through and try to patch with leftover flooring. Big ugly glue seams were present that I could see from the front door. The customer service rep (Neil) told me that "no one will likely see it but you. Don't worry about it; its fine." Eventually they re-did the entire kitchen floor, but left as much damage to walls and baseboards as they fixed on the floor issue. Every deficiency on our list was either fixed in a lousy manner or a huge amount of bickering and excuses before it was fixed. Our lot was supposed to be "graded with loam." Their definition of "loam" apparently means hard clay. Another fight to get a couple loads of real dirt for the yard, but not nearly enough was supplied. To this day the lawn is stunted and grows poorly unless there is lots of fertilizer and constant rain. Our bedroom (master) was constructed with NO insulation over the garage portion, resulting in very cold floor in half the room and this room very drafty and cold in winter. Didn't know this until just before we moved out. Had a leak on garage roof due to lousy flashing install. Also had very uneven floor in living room. Fixed a lot of these issues on my own, as I was able to. Some of it just had to be tolerated as it was impossible to fix without major work. Talking to neighbors, friends and colleagues who built with Stevenson Homes brought numerous tales of regret from their other customers. Our neighbor for example had water lines run on exterior wall of home on outside of insulation. Lines froze in winter; go figure. And their landing for their basement stairs had no support from underneath; it was just hanging from the studs, as no one finished the job after the floor was poured in the home. Another friend had "squishy" spot in carpet. Peeling back flooring revealed a large cavity in basement floor concrete, simply filled with wads of underlay in the hopes that no one would notice. You are starting to get the picture of what these guys are like by now..... Stevenson Homes has built homes in several communities. Each time it is the same story. Several homes are built in a development. Eventually word gets out what shoddy workmanship they deliver and poor after sales support. Then the company moves on to a new community to dupe the next batch of customers who are unaware of the problems encountered in the other communities. Olds, Carstairs, Bowden, Sundre, Drumheller, just to name some places where they have built homes. Collectively in all of these communities are a lot of unhappy customers from Stevenson Homes. So many that I am truly surprised that Stevenson has not been sued by the homeowners collectively, or that he is still in business. Would NEVER consider building with Stevenson Homes again, no matter what the price was. Avoid this builder like the Plague. Holmes on Homes would probably have a show or two that he could do about the way these homes are put together. Some of them should never passed inspection, but some of the building inspectors haven't been doing a great job in the area either. If you are considering buying a Stevenson Home, I highly recommend that you drive around their neighborhoods and ask random home owners about their experience. I doubt you will get many recommendations.

Well, we have been living in our Montorio built home since late December of '09 now and just past our 3-month checklist, which is when I promised Montorio I would write up a review, good or bad. I'm happy to report that our home buying experience was a positive one this time around. We moved from Olds to Fort Saskatchewan and Montorio was a pleasure to deal with compared to our last home builder in Olds, who was Stevenson Homes. Stevenson Homes have left a wide swath of unhappy customers in their wake, but this is not a review about them so I will move on..... My wife and I knew that my transfer was inevitable, so we started to look at houses in the Fort Sask area. We started looking at pre-owned homes, but did not find many of the sort of house we were looking for. Eventually we spotted a Montorio home that was pretty close to our desires: a bit more upscale perhaps than the average home, with ample garage / parking, and decent lot size. It had a small-ish MB, but Patty informed us that another home in Ft Sask was nearing completion and might suit us better. She was right; it was a lot closer to what we were looking for: large ensuite, bigger MB, large triple garage, and a larger-sized lot. After two months of hard looking, we wanted this house! It was also priced quite reasonably for its list of features, and I felt at the time was pretty good value. (I still do.) Our sales rep from Montorio Homes name was Patty, who is a sharp-witted lady with red hair and a fiery sense of humor to match. She kept reminding us to "remember: keep smiling." I had several frustrating set-backs with HR and moving benefits. Trying to meet the date for removal of conditions on the offer to purchase that we had agreed on was not going to happen. No problem: Patty / Montorio were very understanding / accommodating. We ended pushing the date back a couple of times due to other delays beyond our control, but finally we were able to remove conditions. By the time we were able to remove conditions, the house was almost 100% complete, and we really did not have any say in trim, color, etc. I wish I had been able to get all the paperwork done sooner and pick our finishing package. It's not that I did not like Montorio's standard lines of colors and finishing package, as they are pretty nice at the basic level, but I would go a little fancier with hardwood everywhere instead of carpet upstairs, and would have made the whole house a little more luxurious like their show home a block away. Still our home came with so many nice features, like the Montorio-trademark brick pillar out front with the back-lit glass blocks in it, the insulated concrete floor in the basement, granite counter tops in the kitchen, tile and hardwood on the main floor, the columns in the living room and feature wall / built in shelves around the gas fireplace. I couldn't believe my dream garage was attached to a spec-built house. And the ensuite was like a spa retreat to my wife with its double sinks, poly-block windows, large separate shower and jetted soaker tub. We opted to have a heat recovery ventilator installed after we moved in (we paid Montorio an appropriate amount to arrange this to happen.) Still there are some things we will have changed, such as having a man-door on the garage, built-in windows on the overhead garage doors, completing the pull-through 3rd bay to the back yard, and building our custom deck. If the carpet gets too beat up (with small kids and a dog) then we will look at installing the hardwood / laminate that we wanted in the first place but carpet will do fine for now. Quality has been much improved compared to our previous builder, whose tradespeople cut corners at virtually every opportunity. Montorio by contrast had superior work on finishing work throughout. A walk through the unfinished basement was where it became really obvious that this builder does quality work. Nice and neat plumbing and electrical work and framing. Good craftsmanship on the poly and insulating of the foundation walls. Is our house perfect? No. (In my opinion one is pretty unrealistic to expect a house with NO deficiencies unless that person is willing to pay a premium for the same house, and even then it won't be perfect.) Our initial walk-through with Jorge (the construction superintendant) found several small finishing details that needed attention, but not too much that was of immediate concern other than a couple of moist patches in the ceiling of the bonus room upstairs, which were items of concern. Deficiencies were noted, and several have been addressed already. Most of the remaining ones are either seasonal dependant, or we wait for the one year checklist, so that all the normal shrinking and cracking has taken place before final touch-ups are done. The ceiling moisture was a pretty large item of concern, which again surfaced a couple days later when Randy (A Closer Look Inspections) checked out our Montorio home with his FLIR infared camera: looking for insulation, electrical or plumbing issues. It was like having X-ray vision; you could "see" through the walls and look at every stud, etc. There were indeed two moist spots in the bonus room ceiling, plus a small thin spot in the insulation near a light fixture in the walk in closet. The inspection was conducted during the Edmonton area's record setting cold snap with -30 C temps. This cold snap was preceded by some very strong winds and the insulation and framing was otherwise OK. It is assumed that the strong wind managed to swirl the insulation in the attic and left a couple of bare spots which began to condense moisture (evidently finding pinhole to let moisture into the ceiling panel.) This was an easy fix for Montorio, who removed the moist insulation and filled in the holes at the last minute before we took possession of the home. It did make for a bit of tension on closing day because this all happened very late in the game before our purchase went through. We did not know confirmation of what had been found / fixed until closing day (two days after the home inspection that found the problem), but Montorio did not have much time to address the issue due to our late inspection, so the tension wasn't their fault. We just wanted assurances before closing that the issue had been taken care of. It had been addressed, and everything turned out fine. On a major purchase such as a home, one doesn't want to take chances. So that's about all I have to say so far about our experience so far with Montorio. There's been a few bumps and ripples, and how well Montorio has handled them is what makes me more confident in saying that Montorio was a good builder to deal with so far, and I would strongly consider building a home with them again, should the need / desire arise. I plan on updating this review in December of 2010 (or early in 2011) when we get to our one year checklist with Montorio and have our exterior touches / parging complete and lot is graded, etc. So far, so good.